Chocolate banana pudding

The boys and i have found our new favorite treat.. Chocolate banana pudding!

To make this we sliced bananas and put them in the freezer for a couple of hours to chill.. Use 3 -4 bananas.. Then add 4 tbsp of cocoa powder, 1/4 cup of milk, 1 tbsp of vanilla and sugar to taste (we used about a tbsp)... Blend it all together and serve immediately... Delicious and the kids are eating healthy treats!

Self portraits #1

We started our artist month out today by making self portraits.. This is our first self portrait of the month, at the end of the month we will make another one to compare the first one to.. I think it will be interesting to see how much their pictures change after studying various artists

R and E's self portraits
R made the green one and E made the orange one.. The entire time they worked they were in front of a mirror.. It was cute watching them staring at themselves trying to get the details right.. Even though they look simple these drawings took half an hour of concentration!

Chinese new year

The kids have been having a great time learning about china and Chinese new year.. To celebrate we started by making fortune cookies

Unfortunetly I think our batter might have been a bit too thick, they just didn't spread quiet right which made them fold funny.. I love the fortunes the kids came up with:
- you come from the future
- you come from the hospital
- I come from home
- there is a fishy in your future
- there is a monkey in your future
- in the future you will go to the wiggly circus

We also made Chinese dancing dragons

I think the kids liked this new year more then our actual new years.. They love the fact that Chiba gets dragons in their new year :)

Groundhog day

I thought I would take advantage of groundhog day to teach the kids about how shadows are made.. So after we finished talking about groundhogs (the kids thought it was hilarious to know groundhogs wake up 2 - 3 times a winter to use the potty) we discussed shadows and I presented this game to the kids..

I found this game through http://www.kidscanhavefun.com

I love that each animal has it's letter with it to teach letter sounds.. I also used that to incorporate a self checker.. The back of each shadow has the letter of it's animal on the back

Now to just hope spring comes early!

February calendars

Every month we try to make a new calendar page using our handprints and/or footprints.. This month we decided to make love swans.. I found this idea through kidssoup (great website for crafts and activities!) and then just googled to find the poem and calendar pieces.. I love doing handprint activities like this, nothing is funnier then a group of kids laughing hysterically trying to paint their hands!

Ok so I need to work on how to turn pictures in this application... Sorry for the awkward view!

Iphone blogging

So I found an application to allow me to write these posts from my phone.. If I can write posts from anywhere I know they will come more often :) And best of all, I can add pictures right off the phone!

Random bits

These past few weeks have been fairly quiet with the holidays going by so heres a post of just some of the random things we've been doing.. more regularly scheduled posts will be coming along now that we are back to our normal days :)

Snowman Shaving Cream Puff Painting

Playdoh monsters

Footprint Penguin calendars for January

Constellation bottles - When you look inside the constelation has been pinpunched into the bottom of the container so the light can shine through and look like little stars

Light Bright to make our own constellations on

Our word wall - The kids worked together to pick 21 jobs they wanted to learn about and these are them

Our calendar with the days of each occupation we are working on

And lastly, our group calendar. This months pattern for the numbers is Astronaut, Artist, Athelete

More to come soon!

December

Wow, the month of December has just flown by! Sorry there havnt been many posts but things have been busy around here getting ready for santa and enjoying time with people we love.. more posts will be coming soon to show our new theme starting in January where we study different kinds of jobs people have!

The start of Christmas crafts

Now that it is getting close to Christmas we are starting to make our Christmas crafts.. To start, we made rudolphs! First we traced their feet onto cardboard and then used handprints to make antlers.. and of course we couldnt forget the sparkles to make his shiny red nose!

Winter Activities

This month we are learning about winter so I thought I would share a few of our winter activities

Our calendar.. Each morning during our circle time we have a different helper who puts the number of the day up. This teaches them about days of the week, months of the year, counting and patterning. I try to match our numbers to the theme each month so the kids get into it that much more.

Snowmen are always a big hit when we learn about winter so when I saw this game I couldnt pass it up. To play you roll the dice and take the piece with the same number on it. If you get a 5 you dont get to take any pieces and if you get a 6 you can take any piece you want. Whoever makes their silly snowman first, wins! This game is working great to get them to recognize their numbers under 6 and to also count small ammounts like the dots on the dice without counting pieces twice.

Decorating christmas trees is always a big hit every year. This year we made advent ornaments so they are numbered from 1 - 24. I find giving them their own tree also keeps them from trying to redecorate the big tree.

Decembers sensory bin! We started by dying pasta, lentils, peas and rice in red and green and then mixed in a bunch of small plastic snow flakes, cotton balls to make snow, cotton ball snow men, a christmas tree and lots of ornaments to put on the tree. As always, our sensory bins are a work in progress, changing slightly all throughout the month. I find nothing calms a busy kid more then sitting down and running rice through their hands for a few minutes :)

Ok so theres a few of our activities we put out this month. I'm still trying to get used to writing this blog so hopefuly more posts will be coming soon again!